Believers (2007)

Cults are a scary thing. The theme of brainwash and loss of personal identity is a frightening concept that is underused in the genre. The hope, then, would be that this small Indie film would stand a fighting chance as one of the few Horror films to take on the task. What it provides, instead, is an hour and a half of unconvincing acting and characters that fail to realize the premise' potential. Two paramedics are caught up in the twisted grasp of a death cult after answering a distress call from a young girl. They must find a means of escape before they become forced participants in the final "sleep." There are several things that distract from the film's ability to build any suspense or terror. First, the serious tone is unevenly paired with comic relief from one of the leads. Secondly, we find two of the main characters locked in a bathroom stall for more than half of the run time. Third, but certainly not last, the cult's religious tenets just arent interesting or worth exploring any further. Its members are dull, their acting is expectantly stereotypical, and they never convey a plausible belief system that is necessary for the audience to question whether or not they are insane or have legitimate and reasoned convictions. I wanted to like this one, but one would be hard pressed to find it interesting in the least.

7 comments:

Yeah, I was really intrigued by the premise of this one. Alas, it was trite and boring. Nothing was remarkably bad about, but nothing really stood out as horrifying or shocking either. You just stop caring after you look at the clock and realize that they are STILL in the damn bathroom!

In short, no. There are a select few that I have missed that I should have seen by now, but Im working on that. Areas that I am not as well versed in are the classic black and whites, I am only half way through the Hammer films, and there will always be plenty of scattered independent films I have missed over the years.. But with any luck and continued work on the blog, we will slowly close those gaps =D Hell, before last week, I had never seen Godzilla, which was blasphemy!

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